


Hashtag Y So Extra

by VanillaIsNotPlain



Series: Hashtag Viktors (Do) Love Yuuris [2]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Boss Hiroko, Collector Otabek, Crack, Fem!Yuuri, Friendship, Humor, K-Pop Seung Gil, Kigurumi Phichit, Knight in Shining Armor Otabek, Prankster Christophe, Shipper Isabella Yang, Tough Viktor, uni days
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-24
Updated: 2017-07-14
Packaged: 2018-11-18 07:49:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 7
Words: 13,839
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11286867
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/VanillaIsNotPlain/pseuds/VanillaIsNotPlain
Summary: Ever wonder what Phichit and Yuuri got up to at uni? Why Seung-Gil doesn't have any skater friends? Why Christophe likes freezing hotel roof pools so much? How Otabek found Yuri being mobbed by his Angels in the Barcelona backstreets? How The King proposed, JJ Style? How Viktor became a living legend, not just in skating? And most important of all, how is Minako Sensei Hiroko's sempai? If so, this may be the oneshot collection for you!





	1. #Extracurricular

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I don’t own Yuri!!! on Ice.  
> Recommended to read after chapter #BFFs in Viktors Don’t Love Yuuris if you're planning on reading that story, but you don't have to in order to understand this chapter, or any of them really! The important part to know is that Yuuri is secretly a girl here. It doesn't really come up in later chapters.

\- During Yuurika’s university days in Detroit -

“Yuuri!” Phichit burst into the communal laundry room with an enthusiastic yell.

“Gyaa!” The solitary addressed girl leapt a clear ten centimeters from her hard plastic chair next to the hypnotically swirling washing machines. “Stop doing that!” She had to do her laundry at odd hours, to avoid acquaintances glimpsing her... unmentionables.

“What are you doing ten weeks from this Saturday?”

“Let’s see…” Yuurika scrolled through her phone calendar, peering through thick blue-rimmed glasses. “I don’t have anything on that day, but that Monday I have -”

“Great, you’re going to the Pet Shelter Awareness demonstration at noon I’m helping set up in the main courtyard.” Phichit didn’t ask.

“But my physics exam’s that Monday…”

Her ‘room’mate leveled a flat look at her. “Yuuri, you’ve planned out your study times months in advance?”

She stuck a bookmark in the heavily highlighted chemistry labbook balanced on her lap. “Yes, haven’t you?”

Phichit sighed. “You can take a break for an hour. Be there.”

“Okay... “ Yuurika figured it must be an important demonstration. Phichit had probably put a lot of effort into this. She’d be sure be appropriately prepared and represent her friend’s cause with dignity.

Ten weeks later, at seven minutes ‘til noon, Yuurika stared at her rinkmate at the courtyard.

“Phichit, I thought you said this was a demonstration.”

The skater-sized hamster mascot turned its bulging cheerful cheeks in her direction. “It is. Why?”

“What _kind_ of demonstration?”

“A flashmob, obviously. They’re good for public awareness,” the hamster informed her. “Why are you in a dress shirt and a tie with slacks? Woah, you even broke out the contacts!”

“Because you didn’t tell me it was a _flashmob_ ,” Yuurika ground out, irritated eyes already commencing twitching. Great, now she had even more laundry to wash. And these had to be ironed! She hated ironing!

“Well, don’t worry about it,” Phichit’s voice consoled her from inside the perpetually smiling mask. “You stand out - in a good way. Here, take these.” He handed her something from a basket he held.

Yuurika stared at the article dumped in her hands. “No.”

Phichit turned his back to her and offered another pair to the next arrival. “Come on, don’t be a spoilsport. Everyone else is taking one.”

“ _You’re_ not,” Yuurika pointed out truthfully.

“Because they don’t fit on this costume, obviously,” the mammoth hamster argued with equal veracity. “Put on the darn cat ears, Yuuri.”

Yuurika sighed the sigh of the ill-used and put-upon.

Seven minutes later, the university president graced the courtyard with his presence. “And here is where you’ll be addressing the student body in a quarter of an hour,” he notified the guest at his side, strolling into view of the plaza. “They should have the stage and all the chairs set out by now…” He stopped cold.

What greeted his gaze was not a well-ordered set of pavilions and orderly rows and aisles of temporary seating facing the ornamental campus center. In its place was a boogying scrum of his students shaking their thangs (quite within the realm of appropriateness, of course), with some very confused and perturbed staff and volunteers laden with stage equipment and dollies of folding chairs off to the side, whispering. It was a raucous, colorful disaster. Of particular note were the two in the front and center, the maniacally grinning chipmunk-looking creature and a dark slick-backed-haired boy in prim and proper interview-worthy business wear (if you discounted his informally loosened tie) and black cat ears.

Meanwhile, Yuurika glanced up, choked, and nudged Phichit violently out of his groove. “Is that who I think it is?”

The hamster just continued right along jamming to a new beat. “Pres-pres? Yeah. Must have come to support the student organizations.”

Yuurika whipped her head towards him. “Pres-...? No, I mean the one next to him.”

Phichit finally took a good look. His snappy dance steps faltered. “Suffering Salchows! No way!”

Yuurika pulled on his arm and gestured to the bystanders, who were waiting for the crazies to clear out for the main event. “Are you sure the student organization got permission for this?”

The hamster head nodded with conviction. “Yeah, I reserved this venue myself!”

Ten weeks ago -

Phichit stood in front of the student affairs window, meticulously filled-out forms in hand. Empty. As usual. He glanced at his phone - dang, he had to get to class. He’d have to leave the forms on the half-open counter. He recalled that one story Yuurika had told him about how she had ended up in male singles skating to begin with, and determined to take every possible precaution to prevent a redux.

Unfortunately, he hadn’t brought a stapler with him, and careful searching didn’t recover any within reach. But he did find a pack of sticky notes in his backpack. Removing one, Phichit hastily scrawled a message and secured the gummy part around the papers. As extra security, he grabbed a water bottle from the counter and placed it on top of the sheets to hold them down. Satisfied with a job well done, Phichit headed to class.

A few minutes later, the maintenance worker passed down the hall, reaching absently for the water bottle he’d left at the student affair’s office window. While taking a swig, he felt something stiff flap against his hand. He turned his bottle around, and discovered a yellow sticky note with the words:

“Hope this is what you were looking for! ;)

Phichit Chulant

XXX-XXX-XXXX”

The maintenance guy sighed. He was a married man; he wished the college girls would lay off slipping him their mobile numbers. Oh well, he guessed he could laugh about it with his wife at home later. He crumpled up the note and tossed it into a convenient trash bin.

Meanwhile, in the office across from Student Affairs, the receptionist turned his tabletop-mounted fan on. He heard a noise like a ghost leafing through through dry pages, but felt no wind. After inspecting the fan, he adjusted it to face towards him instead of out into the hallway. He never noticed the abandoned forms from the opposite window fallen to the floor and swept by the AC air current beneath the lounge sofa.

Back to the courtyard with the flashmob and the very important guest -

“And you never got a confirmation e-mail, did you?” Yuurika asked Phichit despondently in the midst of the jumping jiving mob.

The hamster grinned at her in silence.

Meanwhile, the Pope turned to the university president. “That’s that Will Pharrell song from that second movie with all the little yellow minions, isn’t it?”

The president just stared back at him. “I don’t know, Holy Father,” he answered finally.

The pastor of the world regarded him with a twinkle in his eye. “Well, do you know if you like to dance?”

In the end, Phichit’s flashmob garnered far more publicity than he anticipated, the Papal address was only delayed by ten minutes with the help of the assembled students, and Yuurika secretly kept the cat ears.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I think Yuuri dancing with cat ears would be cute. Even more though, I really want to see Viktor dancing the kazatsky (that Russian squat and kick dance). That would make my year. I don’t own Will Pharrell, his song Happy, the movie Despicable Me 2, or the Papa. I don’t know if he would actually dance in a flashmob though, considering his age it would probably be inadvisable.


	2. #BoyBand

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we still don't know that much about Seung-Gil. But did you know? In real life, the air pollution is really bad in South Korea, so schools are looking into increasing ice skating lessons because of the good climate control in rinks. You know what that means? More Seung-Gils! What do you mean, that's not how it works?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended to read after chapter #ApronStrings in Viktors Don’t Love Yuuris if you plan to read that story, but you don't have to in order to understand this one-shot.

Before Viktor went to Japan -

Mila Babicheva was frustrated. And this time, it wasn’t about Yakov’s nagging, Yuri’s snappishness, Viktor’s airheadedness, _or_ Georgi’s crumbling love-life. Those were all things the Russian singles skater was far too familiar to with. No, this time, she was frustrated by too _little_ information, rather than too much. She rarely had an opportunity - ah there it was!

Mila popped her head out of the women’s locker room into the hallway she’d just seen the mystery man walk down, and shouted at the top of her (extensive) lungs.

“I like your eyebrows!”

“No,” Korean world-class male ice figure skater Seung-Gil Lee denied, never breaking stride.

Mila was undeterred. “If you’re mad about what I said earlier about beating you up and stealing your lunch money, I was just joking! I know your coach buys your lunch for you!”

“No” echoed back to her from around the corridor corner.

Mila slumped against the lockers, pulling her flame-red hair into her face. She scratched the back of an itchy knee with her other stockinged foot, rubbing meditatively. After all her efforts, that was exactly the same distance she’d ever gotten. A single emphatic “No.”

She meant, she wasn’t trying to ask him out or anything. Ew. She didn’t even know him. But even a guy like him has gotta say _something_ besides “No,” right? No human could only say that one word (well, once they’d grown past the age of two years anyway. He wasn’t in a perpetually prolonged phase of the terrible twos, was he)? She’d tried. She’d gathered all the information on him that she could (He was male, was from Korea, could ice figure skate, had a ridiculous amount of female fans - what else was new about these male figure skaters - his birthday was June 6, and he owned a Husky). She’d asked him questions that he’d be sure to agree with (Would he win this competition, which would have worked with Viktor; if he liked cats, which never got a no with Yuri, though maybe she should have changed it to dogs, all things considered, but she wouldn’t have put it past him to be ornery and disavow it; and latest, the eyebrow thing, after pondering Georgi; she didn’t think asking about his love life would yield anything but cobwebs and empty shelves). All to no avail.

But she wasn’t defeated. This called for a plan - a plan among plans - pulling together all of the data she had on him. After considerable thought, she determined she might have one - though it would require a second agent. Fortunately, she knew just the one - and he happened to owe her a favour, and be stationed conveniently nearby.

Later that night over their nearly-finished dinner, Swiss skater Christophe Giacometti frowned at her across the table. “That’s not a good plan. Aren’t you going to congratulate me on my placement today? And how is our dear little Yuri doing, by the way?

Mila rolled her eyes at him. “That’s because you didn’t let me finish. Don’t men know how to shut up and listen? Good job, to both of us, on silver. Again. And leave Yuri alone, he’s sensitive to teasing.”

“Yes we do,” Christophe lied. “Amazing performance yet again, my dear. Thanks, you’re too kind. And he’s not sensitive to being bench-pressed?” he pointed out wryly. “But please, by all means continue.”

She did.

“Well, that’s more like it,” Christophe smirked approvingly. “Blindsidingly simple, but devastatingly effective. I’m in. But the competition finished today and there’s only one more day before we all leave for our home countries - we’ll have to to do it first thing tomorrow morning. Do you have everything?”

Mila glanced through her phone. “I have some - can you pick these last two up on the way back?” She showed him store listings on an app.

Christophe eyed it. “No problem. See you at oh-six hundred, then?”

Mila nodded, wiped her mouth, and left silently.

“The bill, sir,” the materialized waiter at his elbow proffered.

Christophe suddenly recalled a similar dinner last year - but where he was the one who’d waltzed through the double doors first. “Dangit, she learns fast.”

The next morning, Seung-Gil was accosted by the petite Russian on his way to the lockers to change for practice. “Do you know why manholes are round?” Mila asked him.

He stared down at her. “No.”

She sighed. “I thought not.” Behind him, Christophe slipped out of the men’s locker room unnoticed.

Seung-Gil glared at the girl, then abruptly opened the door and disappeared inside. Mila watched him leave, then rushed around the corner to where Christophe was waiting with his report. “I planted the items.”

Mila grinned. “Great. Now your turn to cover diversion.” They both powerwalked towards the soundbooth of the rink. Mila waited behind the door and motioned for Christophe to work his magic.

Running a hand through his golden curls for maximum artistic dishevelment, Christophe fixed the sound operator with a smouldering stare. “Hey there.”

Mila didn’t wait to hear the rest as she snuck through the secondary entrance and surreptitiously connected her phone to the computer and accessed the practice playlist for the morning. With a few well-practised clicks, she was done. She slipped back out and around, tapping on her partner to signal her task’s completion.

“So, see you soon then,” Christophe drawled with wink. The sound operator fluttered her fingers at him flirtatiously as he walked away.

“Sub-mission accomplished!” Mila high-fived her accomplice.

“Mine too,” said Christophe. “I’ve got a lunch date now.”

“Of course you do,” Mila dismissed. “Right, now all that’s left to do is just show up and watch the show.”

Seung-Gil Lee stomped into his reserved solo practice rink timeslot (first in line this morning), skate-guards in place, looking as he usually did. That is, except for the neon green T-shirt spelling the words “I <3 MY SIBERIAN HUSKY” with sparkles on, and the millimeter deeper than usual pucker between his venerable brows. If he was concerned about what had happened to his actual sportswear, he refused to let it show further than that.

The sound operator choked slightly at the sight he presented, but restrained herself. It was kind of cute in its way. “Ready on your signal,” she announced as usual. Also according to their routine, he nodded at her to cue the music.

_Nah, nah nah nah nah. Nah, nah nah nah nah. Wao. Fantastic Baby._

The speakers blared the bouncy, growly, K-Pop beat from rafter to ice.

Seung-Gil remained frozen on the ice after only a few (but tellingly familiar, and not from his skating program) steps (His ending position was coincidentally was a thrust of his hips - which matched the song perfectly, Mila could not lie. So baby got moves). He glared at the operator, who hurriedly paused the music. “Sorry, that wasn’t your song, was it?”

“No,” he answered shortly.

“I wonder what could have happened,” the bewildered operator began running through her playlist, double-checking.

Seung-Gil didn’t wonder. He knew. He looked as if he would very much like to shout it, but it would be beneath his dignity. There was only one name that fit with this anarchy.

“Me, right?” Mila sauntered to the rinkside, Christophe lingering behind in the shadows of the bleachers.

Seung-Gil refused to answer.

“Well, you won’t pay attention to me otherwise. Can we make up and be friends? Will you forgive me if I apologize?”

Seung-Gil looked as if he’d have to actually hear an apology to believe one.

“Oh, this must be it,” the operator interrupted, locating the other song on Seung-Gil’s saved playlist and pressing play.

_Sorry, sorry, sorry, sorry_ sang Super Junior breezily from the rink stereo.

Christophe snapped along to the refrain from his clear vantage point.

“No.” (Insincere) apology not accepted. This was pathetic. Who would have said ‘yes’ to any of this?

Mila raised her elegantly arched eyebrows. “Well, if you don’t like it…” She paused, carefully considering her next words. “Would you like me to stop?” Her eyes gleamed as she sprang her final trap.

Seung-Gil hesitated, reluctance clear on each line of his face. Weighing his options, he locked eyes with his predator, as a cornered prey decided on flight or fight. His shoulders sagged. He’d given in. He finally opened his mouth to say -

“Yes,” clipped Min-So Park, Seung-Gil’s coach, arriving on the scene.

Mila glanced back towards the bleachers; Christophe had fled. Useless lookout.

“What’s this?” Min-So picked up a small package. “Dog treats?” She turned it over to find a note taped to the front. “‘For your cute husky, which no one knows the name of’,” she read aloud.

“I admit it wasn’t one of my _best_ plans. There was only so much I could do with ‘Korean’ and ‘Owns a husky;’ I couldn’t think of anything for ‘Birthday in June’,” Mila confessed. “And you just shot down the crucial part.”

Seung-Gil just transferred his flat stare to his coach.

“Everyone knows about your dog, Lee. She’s the only thing you post pictures of on Instagram, though you never tag any of them,” she explained rapidly in Korean.

“You can understand his glares?” Mila asked, astonished.

“Of course,” Min-So answered matter-of-factly once again in English. “Can’t you?”

Mila Babicheva acquired a new goal that day (It did not occur to her until later that perhaps it should have been to check Seung-Gil’s ESL scores).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well not everybody is a polyglot. And that’s why the next season Seung-Gil chose the style he thought would distract everyone from his K-Pop style: salsa dancing. I don’t own BIGBANG, their song Fantastic Baby, Super Junior, or their song Sorry, Sorry. And that question about manholes is from practice interview questions from a particular academic contest, I didn’t make it up (I think the answer is so the covers don’t fall in, but wouldn’t equilateral triangles work just as well? Though I guess men aren’t triangle-shaped, so they prefer circles). Good kids don’t bully people, or sneak onto other people’s computers.


	3. #Joyride

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Otabek's declaration and Yuri's sudden attachment make a bit more sense.

The afternoon before the start of the Grand Prix skating finals in Barcelona -

Yuri stood in the narrow Spanish street (He'd lost count of the doorways he'd had to squeeze himself into on the way to prevent being goosed by passing motorist's side mirrors). He stared at the hypnotically swirling carmine-and-pearl striped pole, casting the illusion that with just the next turn, that the ribbons of colour would finally run out. Yuri frowned.

"This isn't a cat cafe," he stated outside the barber shop.

It was already late in the day; he'd wasted far too much time on this. “I'm lost,” he finally admitted aloud.

That was apparently the cue for a devastatingly familiar crowd to come screeching around the corner.

“Do you need directions?” “Can we get a picture?” “Are you getting a haircut?” “Were you crossed in love?” “Can I collect the clippings for my shrine?” A broiling, dust-raising, limb-thrashing amoeboid glob calling themselves by the collective name Yuri’s Angels surrounded him in an instant. Assimilation was inevitable, and resistance was futile.

Just as he despaired and wondered if it would be preferable to hold his breath until he passed out, or if that would end up so much worse, a sudden mounted figure blocked the fading light at the end of the street.

“What the…” The words escaped from beneath the helmet.

In his confusion, the first thing that Yuri thought of was that crazy knight dude that popped up everywhere in this crazy country - that Don Quixote. He was riding a - something, probably not a horse, but Yuri couldn’t be sure over the throng - and wearing a helmet. Knights were supposed to ride around rescuing people, right? Had this one come to rescue him? Would he if Yuri asked? He met his eyes, the words “Save me!” all but spoken on his lips, only the last vestiges of his self-respect holding them back.

The pseudo man of La Mancha seemed to understand anyway. “Excuse me, ladies, coming through,” he ordered politely, nudging his steed slowly into the near-alleyway with regular flicks of his wrist. It was a very noisy and smelly steed, Yuri thought, until he saw it was a horse of steel, aluminum alloy, and carbon fiber.

“Hop on,” said the mysterious stranger, jerking his head to the back of the seat.

Yuri tore himself away from the mob-monster and attempted to comply. Knights were noble and safe, right? Several appendages kept pawing at him, hindering his progress.

“Oh, for the love of -” The masked rider grabbed a helmet from a saddlebag, jammed it on Yuri’s head, yoinked the boy and plopped him in the front of the bike. Surrounding him protectively, the knight-errant kicked into a higher gear and sped away from the scuffle.

Yuri, meanwhile, was having misgivings about the whole affair. Was this the gallantry knights showed to their rescuees? _And if this dude was Don Quixote, did that make him a damsel in distress?_

They slowed to a stop at a small hill just outside the crowded part of the city. They could look down from a rough stone wall at the rooftops below at one side, and see bare rocks and hills rolling upwards on the other. It was a small breathing space, a welcome respite from the busyness below.

The kidnapper (mannapper!) removed his helmet. “Are you okay, Yuri?” he asked in a calm voice.

Yuri tore off his own borrowed head protection. “Yeah. You drive like a grandma. How did you find me?”

“I wanted a touchup on my undercut,” the man said, rubbing the dark short hairs on the back of his head. “But that can wait a few days. And it’s not about speed. You ride with your soul. And I didn’t know if you’d ever ridden on a motorcycle before; it can be difficult if you don’t lean into the turns.”

Yuri (who hadn’t ridden on one before) didn’t know that. “I knew that,” he lied. Something the stranger said earlier struck him. “Who the hell are you? How do you know my name? ”

“Otabek Altin,” said Otabek Altin. “I’m the Grand Prix representative from Kazakhstan. We’ve been competing against each other for a while now. Though not the past couple of years, since I entered the senior division before you.”

“Of course you did.” Just like everyone else he knew (Yuri conveniently ignored the fact that this was his senior debut).

“But we met even earlier than that. In Russia. You don’t remember?”

“Apparently not,” Yuri shot back rudely.

Otabek nodded as if that were a perfectly normal response towards one’s rescuer. “Well, it went something like this.”

Flashback to even earlier than this, like maybe ten years ago I dunno, in Russia -

Otabek looked at the boy stretching next to him at the barre. He was ignoring him completely - which Otabek was pretty used to by now - but Otabek couldn’t help his curiousity. There was something familiar about the tiny skater, that reminded him of home - the way he was focused, sharp and sufficient, his movements quivering with a barely-restrained tension. And above all, his eyes. There was something about his eyes.

It came to him in a flash of inspiration, so unexpected that he couldn’t help but blurt it out. “You look like a girl,” he told Yuri Plisetsky.

Yuri kicked his shins.

Otabek rubbed them thoughtfully. He wasn’t sure what had made the boy so upset. All the girls in his family (in other words, all the girls he knew) were soldiers.

End flashback -

Yuri kicked his shins again. For nostalgia. “No wonder I don’t remember you,” he said deprecatingly. “I probably confused you later with JJ.”

“JJ thought you actually _were_ a girl, I just said you _looked_ like one,” Otabek corrected him, not even flinching from the blow. “There’s a difference. I mean, you’re obviously… male.” Otabek frowned, the words to describe his gut certainty about these things not coming to him.

It made Yuri feel a little better - but only a very little bit. “It took years for JJ to finally believe me,” he griped, kicking at rubble along the road.

“Sorry,” Otabek said politely but ineffectually. “Anyway, do you need a lift anywhere?”

Yuri glanced sideways at him in silent calculation, assessing whether to trust him. He decided to give it a shot, he hardly had anything to lose here anymore. “I was trying to go here,” he said, handing Otabek his phone with the map app open. “I’ve been noticing that it’s a little off when using walking directions.”

Otabek glanced at the proffered item without even registering the destination. “That’s Madrid,” Otabek informed him.

“Uh, okay?” Yuri wasn’t sure why Otabek was pointing out other cities.

“We’re in Barcelona. Your map isn’t even within five hundred kilometers of where we are.”

“What?” Yuri snatched his device back from the Kazakh and shook it pointlessly.

“Do you have location finder on?”

“Yeah, I always do.” Yuri scrolled through his settings. He groaned.

“Was it off?” Otabek asked curiously.

“No.” Yuri wasn’t lying. Location finder was on. It just wasn’t activated because he’d left his phone on flight mode (again).

Otabek didn’t push the issue. “Well, is there anywhere else you want to go? I can search on my phone.”

Yuri's stomach growled. "I think I've have enough searching for places today," he declared. "I'm friggin' starving."

Otabek's stomach replied in kind with a stentorian rumble. "Fine by me. Want to just stop off at the first likely place we see in the city?"

"Sure," Yuri answered gruffly. "And if anyone asks, we were sightseeing."

"But we didn't see any sights."

"Then we'd better take a good look at this one."

They both contemplated the untamed wilderness of rubble and stone sloping before them, the wind whistling softly through the sharp maze. The shadows shifted imperceptibly steeper as the sun drew closer to the horizon. The wonders of nature never ceased to amaze.

"'Kay, all done," Yuri announced. "Dibs on shotgun."

Before Otabek could explain that's not how it worked on a bike, a passing bird kindly informed Yuri in his own avian way of the cruddiness of that comment - scoring a gol between the lapels of his jacket and through the neckhole of his hoodie.

Yuri bit back a curse. "Typical." He'd just bought that shirt earlier today too. Did foreign nations have a vendetta against his clothing?

"Well, better than on your bunnyhug," said Otabek, rummaging through a saddlebag. "Hang on, I think I've got something you can change into underneath - yeah, here. A shopowner gave me a second for free - I don't fit in this size anyway, so you'd be doing me a favour by taking it." He held out a limited edition (knock-off, probably, the hypercritical side of Yuri interjected) Madrid jersey, imbued with the gold and crimson of their home country, and bearing the two coats of arms of their united kingdoms - the castle gules of Castile, and even more prominently, the raging royal purple king of beasts of Leon.

Yuri's eyes bugged.

"You don't want it?" Otabek, unsure of Yuri's reaction, slowly began withdrawing the proffered silkscreened article.

"No, no, I want it! Thanks!" Yuri made a grab for the lion jersey, tossing his jacket, hoodie and soiled shirt to the winter winds, and draping the smooth stretchy folds over his head. He pulled it down and smoothed out all the wrinkles, admiring the effect from various angles.

"A perfect fit," Otabek noted, satisfied. "I'm glad I happened to get it."

"I didn't know you liked this fashion style too," Yuri confided, still absorbed in preening. "No one else I know appreciates it." They tried, he guessed, in their own way. Mila gave him grumpy kitty and feline meme-based goods when she ran across them (and thought they'd get a rise out of him). Viktor just bought him dog shirts though (His indoctrination plan so far had met with little success).

"I like to pick them up when I visit different places. They can be hard to find, depending on the season." Otabek was lucky to find this set - futbol was long over once the Grand Prix was underway, and official branded sporting stock ran out fast (Which explained why this one wasn't officially branded, but as the shopkeeper had quite unethically justified, what the buyer didn't know wouldn't hurt the seller).

"I know!" Yuri felt his pain - he'd been looking forever, and still couldn't find a cat hoodie he liked enough to shell out the cash for (He was still fond of his leopard print one though). Finally, someone who got it! Yuri was sure now that they would become great friends.

"Aren't you cold?" Otabek brought Yuri's giddy flights of fancy back to earth.

"Yeah." Yuri donned his hoodie and zipped up his jacket over his new gift with great reluctance.

“So, any preferences for food?” Otabek asked once they were both settled.

“Anywhere the two idiots aren’t,” Yuri responded amicably.

Otabek wasn’t entirely sure who that epithet referred to, but he could hazard a pretty good guess. "You mean your Russian rinkmates? Georgi Popovich and... Mila Babicheva, right? The Crispino twins geotagged them all at a marzipan factory tour right about now," Otabek read from his phone.

"No, well, not _just_ them,” Yuri amended. “I meant the other two idiots."

Otabek swiped down. "Oh, Viktor Nikiforov and Katsuki Yuuri just checked in to la Sagrada Familia, so we should be good."

"You're surprisingly well informed, and not just about everyone's whereabouts," Yuri said suspiciously.

"Well, it's not hard to guess who you hang around. You're constantly tagged in all their posts. All the top competitors follow each other; you're probably the only one who doesn't know this stuff," Otabek explained placidly. “Anyway, avoiding them shouldn’t be a problem. It’s a huge city, and we’re not visiting a tourist spot; we’ll hardly run into them by accident.” He flipped up his kickstand, twisted the key and shoved the bike into gear.

Yuri’s skinny arms encircled Otabek’s midsection from behind. “Thanks,” he whispered, barely discernable over the purr of the engine. “For… this.”

Otabek didn’t bother to turn to look at him as he revved the throttle. “You’re welcome,” he rumbled, knowing the vibration in his chest would carry to his clinging passenger.

“Don’t crash.”

“... Alright, since you say so,” said Otabek dryly, leaning towards the populated part of the city, spewing dirt and exhaust and a roar in his wake.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Um, I love motorcycles. And snarky Yuris. That “riding with your soul” line comes from Hatoful Boyfriend, which I do not own. Unfortunately, the cat cafe in Barcelona and the castle slash lion Club Madrid jersey are completely made up (I mean, I didn’t really check, maybe they exist??). Good kids don’t grab people and sling them onto bikes. It can cause accidents. And good kids don’t hop on stranger’s rides, no matter how sweet they are.


	4. #Godfather

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Yuri reluctantly cares, Christophe discovers a new side to Viktor, and a certain organization does too.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended to read after chapter #YOLO in Viktors Don’t Love Yuuris, if you should choose to read that story.
> 
> Takes place when Viktor knew Yuri but not Yuuri, Yuri knew Yuuri and unfortunately for him Viktor and Christophe, Christophe knew Viktor, Yuri, AND Yuuri, and Yuuri knew a lot ABOUT Viktor and sort-of knew Christophe (but wished otherwise) and probably should have known Yuri but didn’t. In other words, before the finals in Sochi or Viktor flew to Japan.

"Why are we doing this again?" singles figure skater Russian prodigy Yuri Plisetsky asked tersely as he plodded down the noisy Sankt Petersburg street away from his rink.

"Because it'll be fun!" the other, first singles figure skater Russian prodigy Viktor Nikiforov answered with his trademark heart-shaped grin, near-skipping alongside him.

"Yeah, besides that," Yuri scoffed, disbelief in the claim cutting through clearly.

"Because I owe you a present for qualifying for the Junior finals! You'll need a nice suit for the press conferences and galas, and I have excellent taste, if I do say so myself. Which I don't have to; the magazines say it for me," Viktor elaborated.

Yuri frowned, kicking a stray rock. "Okay, then, why are _you_ here?"

"Out of the goodness of my heart to ensure that Viktor follows through. You know how he is," visiting Swiss multi-medalist Christophe Giacometti justified his presence. Actually, it was mainly because his schadenfreude senses were tingling, but he felt no compunction to mention that.

Viktor patted Yuri’s shoulder condescendingly. "Just go with it, Yuri. I couldn't think of anything else to get you, and you get a free (and most likely sinfully expensive) ensemble out of the deal. If you don't like it, you'll outgrow it soon anyway, you're ridiculously short still. And if there's something you'd rather have, just ask for it as a reward for winning gold at the Junior finals and matriculating to Senior division," he advised.

Yuri stuck out a foot to kick his elder rinkmate in the shins as retaliation for the (totally unnecessary) 'short' jab, but his attack was adroitly dodged. He'd been using that one too often lately; he should add some new material to his arsenal. "There is one thing I do want," Yuri admitted, tone serious. He'd put a lot of thought into this request for a long time now (like a day and a half). "For my senior debut, would you choreo-"

The rest of his sentence (eh, not like it would have been important to any of their futures anyway) was cut off forever by the sudden arrival of a stray cat from over a stone wall running alongside their path. The scruffy feline leapt in a fit of joyous passion, making a beeline for the youngest member of their party. Admittedly, this was a strangely common occurrence recently; Viktor for a while now had been suspecting but never confirmed that their rinkmate Mila had been regularly sprinkling catnip extract on Yuri's deodorant when no one was looking. It was amusing and harmless (to Viktor) in its own special way, so he'd seen no pressing reason to interfere. That was, naturally, because he'd never been caught between the doubletime purring predator and its yowling hissing prey. Never, that is, before today.

"Incoming!" yelled Christophe.

"Expletive," Yuri muttered, ducking instinctively.

"A different expletive," Viktor moaned, his own reflexes not honed to the occasion as Yuri's were. He managed to barely avoid the flying fanged and clawed creature. Instead, he collided with a ringing crash into a dilapidated mailbox just beyond.

"You okay, Viktor?" Christophe asked worriedly.

"I, uh, I guess so?" Viktor checked his deceptively plain-looking shirt for scratch marks.

"You're bleeding," Yuri informed him shortly, pointing to a long rip on the side of Viktor's pants (In both their defenses, Viktor's racing adrenaline had not yet made way for his pain receptors, and Yuri's range of vision was far closer to Viktor's seat-area than Viktor’s was).

"Ahhh!" Viktor raised his hands in the air involuntarily and jumped back. He did not particularly mind the sight of blood, unless it was his own.

"Ahhh!" Yuri jumped backwards an equal distance, echoing his senior like a time-delayed, higher-pitched autotune echo. He was used to the sight of his own blood, having such an extensive repertoire of interactions with cats, but had difficulty witnessing others bleed.

"Stay calm, you two." Christophe took charge proficiently. "First things first. It looks like that cut came from that rusty mailbox; we'll have to take you to get a tetanus booster probably."

"What about rabies?" Yuri asked, eyes wide (He had spent a bit of time worrying about this previously, considering his circumstances).

"But I checked; I wasn't bitten or scratched. Can you get rabies from animals breathing on you?" Viktor looked alarmed.

Christophe sighed sternly. "I don't know. We can ask when you get your tetanus shot. In the meantime, we should disinfect the wound. The cut looks pretty shallow, so I don't think you'll need a compress or even a bandage necessarily. Yuri, can you run to the nearest store and ask for disinfectant?"

Yuri, all earlier griping forgotten, turned towards the direction of their previous destination. "What kind of disinfectant?"

"I don't know, whatever they have I guess. Iodine, or rubbing alcohol. That's probably more common," Christophe explained impatiently, helping a wincing Viktor lower himself to the pavement for a closer inspection of the laceration.

"Rubbing alcohol, got it." Yuri loped off towards the outskirts of the group of shops they'd been planning to peruse, concern lending him speed. He soon reached the first one, and ran up the short flight of steps to the entrance. Yuri ducked beneath the bleary watch of a loiterer slouching by the pockmarked cedar door and slipped in. He jogged straight up to the sales counter.

“What can I get you?” A solidly-built hulk of a man stood behind the counter, preoccupied with some stock on the back wall and not even glancing at his customer.

Yuri panted, eyes still wide from his run. “My friend needs alcohol,” he gasped out, voice strung low from exertion.

“Right.” The lumbering figure reached for a dark container stacked along the wall. “How strong?”

Yuri wrinkled his forehead, trying to recall if Christophe said anything about that. “The strongest,” he decided. That would mean even more disinfecting power, right?

“Right.” The man repeated himself, reaching for and lifting a clear glass narrow-necked bottle from a shelf above the counter. “That’ll be… hey, you’re not the courier!” He barked the last clause as he finally turned towards the diminutive skater.

“What?” Yuri asked belligerently, already leaning with a hand outstretched towards the full crystalline bottle.

“No spirits for minors!” The man shouted, head lowered menacingly to within inches of Yuri’s significantly smaller own, spittle sprinkling.

Yuri had had enough of this. He hissed, clenched his teeth, and jumped towards the bartender, colliding foreheads with a painful _crack_. Snatching the vodka from his loosened grip, Yuri spun on the balls of his feet and sprinted for the door.

The man growled, rubbing his aching cranium and thumping towards the dividing door to the back room. “Hey! You two! We’ve got a looter!” He was met with several loud thunks and slapping footsteps, as three dangerous-looking men rushed to meet him. He spoke over their loud overlapping questions. “Leave the guns - knive’s’ll do. It’s just one kid, no need to draw attention to the robbery in broad daylight. You - stay behind, watch over the place. You two - with me.”

The trio spilled out the door, startling the snoozing bouncer just outside. The bartender rolled his eyes. “Fat lot of good _you_ did. Make it up now. We’re gonna catch that kid that just ran out, and get our vodka back. No one steals from us and lives to tell the tale.”

The band now four strong rushed to the streets, pounding a heavy tattoo along the pavement. On their way, they ducked with practised ease under a swinging sign hanging off the eaves, reading in faded cracked wooden letters ‘The Tsarina’s Matryoshka.’

You see, this particular establishment was a bit of a secret lair within a hidey-hole within a run-down bar, just like the eponymous nesting dolls. And the referenced Tsarina - that was the entire seedy underbelly of Mother Russia.

In short, Yuri Plisetsky had just (inadvertently) headbutted and purloined liquor from the Bratva.

Meanwhile, that same Yuri was running pell-mell down the street, capped sloshing cargo clutched tight to his chest with both skinny arms. As he turned the last corner and approached the seated skating duo, he at last risked a glance behind him, and discerned the four ruffians gaining ground. With a last desperate burst, Yuri closed the remaining distance, tossed the flask to Christophe’s waiting arms, and tumbled harmlessly to the grass strip behind them.

Christophe glanced back and forth between the wheezing boy and the rapidly encroaching angry group, genuine apprehension marring his sculpted features. “Yuri, what did you do!?”

Yuri just gasped in and out, too windblown to form the explanatory words.

Christophe, staring at him with concern, felt himself shoved by a hand on his shoulder. “Stay with Yuri, Chris,” a resolved voice commanded him. With a groan, Viktor raised himself to his full height, back to his companions, and faced the advancing motley crew. A sudden ominous breeze whipped his loose hair strands back, sending them snapping and springing like cut live wires. Christophe frowned in mute consternation as he saw his friend flex his wrists and curl his fingers into loose fists, thumbs tucked against his knuckles, and bounce lightly twice on the balls of his feet in a rocking motion.

He dearly wished he could have seen Viktor’s face as he scuffed the concrete with the soles of his dapper shoes, waiting for the first goon to close the distance.

Though Viktor’s stance was clearly scrap-seeking, the Bratva were primarily concerned with the thief. Thus, the frontrunner adjusted his trajectory to flow neatly around the unmarked civilian and close on the smaller blonde boy in his shadow. Viktor appeared ready to allow this, merely taking a step forward and past the oncoming avenger - before throwing his right arm about the man’s upraised, knife-bearing own and shoving him backward savagely, pairing the action with a simultaneous right foot behind the man’s counterpart. The Bratva agent tripped and rotated backwards and toppled with a meaty _thud_. Back slammed hard on the pavement, he lay there, curled in and choking for the wind driven out of him. Viktor spared no time for him, jerking his gaze front and center from where the next brawlers were fast approaching. He rolled his shoulders, loosening them in preparation for the new target he was sure he’d just painted upon them.

His prediction was well-founded. The next attacker ignored Yuri and Christophe behind him, closing in directly on Viktor. The scurrilous fellow charged with quick thrusts of his suddenly-drawn blade, stabbing at various vital spots on his torso. With deft minimalist bends, Viktor dodged them all, eyes tracking the keen edge until it lifted for a split second to aim between his eyes. Quick as a flash, Viktor stepped in and spun until he was spooned by the attacker, grabbing his outstretched arm and pulling it hard, elbow down, over his own shoulder. With sharp cry of pain, the man released his knife, sending it clattering to the concrete. This injury was not enough to inspire defeat or retreat though - with commendable presence of mind, he whipped both his arms around Viktor’s neck in a solid chokehold, attempting to slowly squeeze the air out of the skater’s trachea.

Before Viktor could rid himself of the monkey on his back, a third contender entered the fray, rushing around from his blind spot behind him to corner him in the still-whimpering man’s hold. Before the third Bratva lackey could draw his own knife, Viktor shoved hard out and away from the close heavy embrace, loosening it fractionally, and dropped all his weight straight down to the pavement. Knee drawn up to his chin and supporting himself on one tensed foot, Viktor whipped out the other directly in the third man’s path, tangling him at the ankles and sending him sprawling on the grass, knife puncturing deep in the pliant turf. Before the second, chokehold-wielding goon could retrieve him, Viktor popped up, back still against the man’s burly chest, and transferred the force of his impetus into a vicious elbow that sank deep into the man’s expansive breadbasket. Gurgling, the man crumpled to the sidewalk.

Their ringleader chose this moment to enter the fray, taunting his henchmen with a derisive “Come on, you lily-livered buffoons. Is that the best you can do? What are you being paid for? Do I need to call in more agents to take care of one half-sized boy and two pansy-faced dandies?”

This verbal lashing spurred them back to their feet, amidst stifled groans. The three retrieved their weapons and advanced menacingly, beleaguering the standing skater on all fronts. Viktor straightened, brushing the hair from one eye with the hand that just moments before had been clutching in panic at the cut on his thigh, leaving a weak smear of blood across his face. A cold calculating expression gleamed sideways from the shadowed depths beneath his calm neutral brows. He waited for their move, not giving them the satisfaction of hearing him beg for mercy or even breathe heavily from exertion.

Christophe shielded the still panting Yuri with an outstretched arm and clutched the vodka with the other, waiting for an opening when he was certain all eyes were off him so that he could reach for his phone and dial for the authorities (Now of all times, he wished he’d made sure that his battery was full). In the meantime, he stared at his friend. The roiling feeling in Christophe’s gut was a new sensation. The closest he could get to analyzing it was something akin to fingering familiar delicate strands of lace, only to be met with implacable iron whorls in its place, slender yet no less strong. For the Bratva agents Viktor had just tangled with, however, the wrought iron filigree was all they’d yet witnessed; no one showed mercy to hard ferrous ore. The attackers appraised him, knives held loosely in flexible wrists, searching for an opening to slip one in.

"Wait!" The burly bartender held up a hand, peering closer at the target. He began piecing together several different aspects of their resistor - a cold, fearless killing aura; haughty ice-blue eyes that pierced effortlessly through their feints and ruses; a tall, sturdy yet slim build that spoke of years of training and experience; and most telling of all, the angry red scar stretching from hairline to high cheekbone right across one eyelid. There was one man in Russia who matched that description; and moreover, he was expected on their territory.

“Serebryanyy Klinok,” the bartender breathed, approaching reverence.

“What!?” This name sprung an immediate reaction from the Bratva conscripts. They flinched backwards, sharp implements lowered, and began whispering furiously.

“You mean he’s -”

“From the branch in that other city?”

“I heard he was coming soon for an inspection, but I never thought -”

“To broker an alliance, wasn’t it?”

“This is bad!”

Christophe’s synapses fired double-time, searching for the translation to that somehow significant phrase. The words sounded familiar. He felt he’d heard both at some point when visiting Viktor before at the rink, but at separate times. The second one he felt was the name of a part of the skate itself - was it laces? No, that wasn’t it… Sole? No, blade! It was blade.

The first though… Christophe thought further back, to when he’d first joined the bevy of fans clustered at the rinkside, watching Viktor practice. They would blush and murmur something, something about his hair, luxuriously long then, like a stream of liquid… silver. Silver! So, ‘Silver… Blade’? Not a bad name for the living ice-skating legend, to be sure, but coupled with the agents’ worried whisperings, Christophe got the inkling that that wasn’t exactly what they were concerned about.

Viktor, however, wound up with coiled tension and all senses tuned to maximum while focusing on none, had caught none of that. But he did notice the new reluctance to attack. He relaxed himself marginally. “So, we’ve had enough?” he broached hopefully.

“Yes, of course! Now that we recognize you, we wouldn’t dream of continuing. Please forgive us,” the bartender exclaimed hastily with a subservient head-bow, signalling to his underlings to sequester their weapons.

And just like that, the cold carbon fibers unraveled back into comforting cotton.

“I’m so glad that’s straightened out,” Viktor told them conversationally, walking over to Christophe and plucking the vodka from his nerveless grasp. “You’ll have to forgive Yuri. I think we may have confused him a little with our instructions. We just needed to borrow this.”

“Right! No problem!” The bartender flashed an appeasing smile as his help skulked to congregate behind him apprehensively, all the fight in them dissipated like smoke after a sudden gale.

Viktor unscrewed the flask and allowed a brief pungent stream to run over the cut on his thigh. He coughed politely. "So, why are you still here?"

The bartender rubbed his hands together in servile reticence. "Um, we still need that back. You understand."

"Oh right." Viktor capped the flask with alacrity and pushed it towards him with his signature heart-shaped smile.

"So, where did all that come from?" Christophe prompted a minute later, once Viktor had finished waving to the Bratva's out-of-earshot retreating backs.

"Women's self defense class!" Viktor told him cheerfully.

"Women's?" Yuri echoed, perturbed but at last recovered, as they finally began their walk to the nearest clinic.

"Yeah, I wondered about that too! I registered for the men's, but they assured me when I attended that I'd learn the exact same techniques there. They must have run out of space in the men's class."

Christophe sincerely doubted that, having his own theories on their motivation. He also was slightly skeptical that all those moves were from that class - he discerned traces of capoeira in there. He mentally filed a note to remember this when he needed a cash cow - he meant champion to back for their mutual benefit - in any break dancing competitions in the future.

Yuri huffed, not looking either man at his side in the eye as he walked. "You're welcome, by the way."

Viktor turned to him, mystified. "Did you take down one when I wasn't looking?"

"No!" Yuri didn't do that Konami-code on fast-forward nonsense. He liked to stick to the basics (shin kicks, verbal jabs and knife shoes). "I meant bringing you the disinfectant."

"Thank you, Yuri." Viktor finally said sincerely. "And I'm sorry to have made you go through this, especially during our shopping expedition. But there's plenty of daylight left; we'll go right after I get checked up."

Yuri grunted in acknowledgment.

"Though, Yuri, vodka wasn't exactly what I meant by disinfectant, you know," Christophe pointed out. You might say he couldn't leave well enough alone. He'd just say he felt it wrong to neglect a chance for the edification of others (And if he received any amusement in return, as it often turned out, well, that was merely happenstance and in no way marred his altruistic intentions).

Yuri rolled his eyes. "I know that." He knew _now_. "I was in a hurry. You put the risky part on me; as usual. I just hope that no one will have it in for me after this stunt you pulled."

Viktor laughed at his fears. "No way. After that whole showdown, they probably don't even remember you were there."

Yuri scowled to mask his relief. "If that’s true, they'll forget all about you pretty soon too; it wasn't like you were particularly memorable or anything."

Viktor chuckled, eyes crinkling. "I bet you're right."

As they found out the next time they walked into a bar with Yuri weeks later in the complete other side of the city, to awed murmurs of "Serebryanyy Klinok" flitting around the tables like wildfire and surreptitious winkling away of certain familiar-looking flasks, they weren't.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, there were men in the women’s self defence class I attended too, Viktor, I dunno either. Weird. And I used the usual translating website for the Viktor’s new Bratva mistaken identity; I don’t know Russian (though I did take Russian history for a semester by accident; the teacher’s theories on Rasputin were… interesting), so hopefully it turned out correctly.   
> This fanfiction does not promote sneaking catnip in things, violence, stealing alcohol whether a minor or not, using vodka to disinfect wounds, nor tangles with the mafia of any country (Wow, this was a pretty risky behaviour - full chapter. Dang). It probably does not describe the proper technique for any of the moves described either, though some are self defence moves. You should learn them from a professional rather than follow the description here, so as not to injure yourself or others. In general, self defence is just a great skill to learn! This fanfiction also should not be used for medical advice.


	5. #IcePiranha

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which there is so much literary crack. I can't even. Sorry, Christophe.

It all started with the area of a circle.

Well, actually, it started with autocorrect.

Phichit Chulanont, Thai skater extraordinaire, had arrived at Barcelona over a day early for the Grand Prix finals. Gregarious guy that he was, he’d quickly made plans for each meal with the various skaters he was reuniting with. It was fun to catch up and hear how everyone was doing, snap selfies, and engage in a bit of bragging about how they’d one-up the other on the ice.

Anyway, this morning at nine, Phichit was to meet JJ and his girlfriend (Phichit had a bet going with the Crispinos about how long she’d retain that title before trading it in for a different one - just another twenty-four hours without incident, and he’d be able to collect). JJ had texted him a reminder - “B there r pi square” - and Phichit, with a minimal amount of effort, was able to arrive in the nick of time. He waited there for ten minutes, looking around - JJ was usually pretty punctual; he hoped nothing had happened to him or Isabella.

Just as he thought this, he received a call. Speak of the devil - Phichit picked up.

“Are you alright? I thought you’d be here by now,” JJ’s Canadian accent was tinged with worry.

“That’s my line,” Phichit responded. “I’ve been looking for you. I’m right by the main entrance.”

Phichit could hear the shared glance between the two on the line. “That’s where we are too,” Isabella answered this time.

Phichit frowned. “Weird. Is there more than one location?”

“I only saw one lobby when I came in.”

“Yeah, me too.”

“... Did you join up with Christophe to prank me? Again?”

“No, I keep telling you, that wasn’t me! And I’d never mess with anyone over breakfast!” Phichit sighed. “I guess this would have been easier if we just walked here together.”

“But we’re on opposite wings,” JJ reminded him.

“Yeah, but we could have met up in the lobby downstairs,” Phichit explained reasonably.

“...That’s where we are now,” Isabella informed him blankly.

Phichit frowned. “But you said to meet at Pi R Square!”

“What are you talking about?” JJ asked, confuzzled.

“Hang on, I’m putting you on speaker.” Isabella took charge, checking JJ’s text history. “JJ, what is this here supposed to say?”

“Uh, ‘Be there or be square?’” JJ recalled. “It’s just a courtesy reminder.”

“Ohhh…” Understanding dawned on Phichit.

“You never told him we were going to the continental breakfast.” Isabella didn’t ask.

“Oops. Sorry, man.” Let it never be said that JJ refused to apologize for his mistakes (Not that it made everything better - Yuri Plisetsky still hated his guts for mistaking him for a girl for five whole years).

And likewise, Phichit was not the type to hold grudges. “Don’t worry about it. Well, which do you want to eat at?”

“Well, it _is_ free here. And they’ve got custom-made omelets,” JJ confessed.

“And fresh crepes,” Isabella tempted.

Phichit’s stomach rumbled involuntarily. How did she know his weakness? “Be right there!” He hung up and all but raced out the door.

A healthy breakfast plus a split crepe later (He’d reward himself with more after winning the Prix, he decided), Phichit felt himself drawn back to that charming hole-in-the-wall cafe he’d visited by mistake earlier. He could feel a food blog post coming on. He trekked back to his room for his selfie stick and bluetooth keyboard, and then headed for the elevators. He waited and waited for a down-destined one, but finally gave up and boarded an upward bound car. He’d just wait for everyone to disembark and then press the button for the ground floor.

As the doors slid open on the top level, he was arrested by a curious throbbing coming from down the corridor. His story senses tingling, he decided his intended destination could be put on hold for a few minutes (Phichit may have been an acute sufferer of FOMO). Phichit tiptoed towards the source of the sound, which led him towards the roof pool entrance. The closer he got, the more crystalline the noises resolved, until he could distinguish a clear tune. Was that… John Williams music? Just as he reached the door, the sounds cut off.

Phichit let a boy and girl with an older woman (their guardian, he presumed) who were approaching the same entrance go ahead of him, and slipped out unnoticed behind them. He concealed himself behind a potted plant (admittedly barren in the depths of winter, but the ginormous pot was sufficient to hide him on its own), tucked his keyboard beneath his arm, attached his silenced phone to his selfie stick, set it to record video on his signal, and held it at the ready, drawn and ready to shoot. He had a hunch about this.

The two kids meandered over to the water, the girl sticking one toe in, both giggling.

“Let’s go back inside,” the woman called, rubbing her arms and shivering. “It’s far too cold to swim. You’d have to be crazy.”

“In a minute Mom,” the boy sing-songed, promptly ignoring her and loitering about with his (probable) sister. They appeared fascinated with the chilly pool.

That fascination morphed into a different form when the pool speakers suddenly switched on (Phichit’s sharp tech-savvy eyes spied a disturbingly familiar phone jury-rigged to the stereo system).

_Da na na na Da na na na DA na na na na na na na_

After the chugging beat, loud, blaring insistent notes ranged up and down the scale threateningly.

As he extended his stick and began recording, a lightbulb went off in Phichit’s head. He remembered watching the movie with this music with Yuuri in Detroit during their disaster slash horror flick phase. He was beginning to formulate a prediction of what would show up next.

The kids remained frozen in consternation at the pool’s edge. They failed to remain so when a dark sleek triangle pierced the water’s surface, swimming menacingly in their direction.

“SHARK!” With repeated screams, the children scrambled away from the pool and towards their parent.

The frazzled mother sighed in exasperation. “We’re on a hotel roof for goodness’ sake, how could there be a…” She was interrupted by a huge bow wave splashing on the pavement as the shark in the pool turned to pick up speed for another attack. She grunted a phrase that Phichit would have to edit slightly in the audio later. The overwhelmed woman shepherded her suddenly eager children towards the door, shutting it firmly behind them and pelting towards the elevator and the safety of their rooms.

Phichit, however, was not scared off so easily. He stayed put and kept the recording running. His patience was soon rewarded.

About a minute later, the shark slowly went vertical, revealing a snorkel apparatus off to one side. Deep regular breaths issued from it, reminiscent of a iconic character from another John Williams’ scored movie franchise. Carefully, a flap surrounding the breathing device opened, and a certain familiar scruffy blonde face revealed itself beneath.

A distorted voice issued from depths. “Mission successful,” it intoned deeply.

Phichit switched from video to photo burst mode. So this was what the renowned mature Swiss skater Christophe Giacometti did to relieve the pre-competition jitters? Phichit had heard his pranks were of legendary proportions, but this was a bit…

Well, no matter, Phichit decided. He had a feeling the blackmail - he meant evidence - he’d just collected might come in handy someday (Little did he know that he wouldn’t even have to wait a day, but that’s another story).

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry, I think this was funnier in my head before I wrote it. I don’t own Jaws or John Williams. Or Darth Vader. I was waiting and waiting for a chance to include a Star Wars reference! Star Wars is the best!  
> There is a cafe called Pi R Square, but it’s not in Spain. There was a place to eat called John Lemon in Spain though, but the one I saw wasn’t in Barcelona, but in Santander. There's also a Victor Square in Oviedo.  
> Good kids don’t play dangerous pranks in the pool like Christophe. It’s dangerous. Don’t be Christophe.


	6. #AllTheSingleLadies

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which Isabella shines, and JJ tries.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended to read after chapter #YOLO in Viktors Don’t Love Yuuris if you want to read that story; takes place during the day just beforehand (the day all the finalists meet up in the bar in Barcelona, before the short program of the Grand Prix finals).

Isabella Yang was on a mission.

Besides being an avid skating fan, a proficient interior designer, girlfriend to the Canadian skating champion and head of his official fan club, she had another important facet in her life.

Isabella Yang was a shipper (No, not the nautical kind. Nor the postal one. Stahp).

It wasn’t something she really talked about with others - it was as natural as breathing in some ways. She enjoyed seeing people around her happy with their special someone, whether real (She still thought Sara and Emil would be cute together, if Micky could just get over himself) or fictional (No offense to Hinata’s game, but, sunk or floating, NaruSaku would always hold a special place in her heart). She liked to help out when she could, following their joys and hopes and disappointments, squeeing or commiserating in sympathy with their fluctuating stories. She knew she was hardly the only one.

Like all shippers, she had her favourites. And also, just the same, she had her absolute, indisputable One True Pairing. The OTP to rule all other OTPS, the OTP that was totally superior to all your trash OTPs (Shipping wars could get a little heated). And it was the pursuit of just that OTP that formed her quest today.

Isabella’s OTP happened to be her and JJ Leroy.

It wasn’t like they were in a bad phase. Everything was going swimmingly between them. The only trouble in paradise was that things had been going _too_ well, for _too_ long. They’d been dating for a long (long long long) time, quite happily. And Isabella was fine with that, except for one small incident.

It was a status update by JJ some time ago. He’d posted a blurry picture of the outside a certain jewelery store, with the caption “About to make a Very Important Purchase for a Very Important Girl for a Very Important Date,” with the hashtag #GoodAdviceBeyonce. Her boyfriend was many things, but subtle wasn’t one of them. He still hadn’t given up surprise parties for her, but hadn’t managed a successful one for years now. At least he hadn’t tagged her in this post.

Ever since then, Isabella had prepared herself at every likely event. She made sure her makeup was perfect, her hair flawless, her nails manicured and unchipped. But nothing happened. It was exhausting, frankly. And besides that, all the required peripheries that came with an engagement hung over her - the announcements, the party invitations and venue, the registries and showers and retinue selection and coordination. She just wanted to get it over with. She was a fangirl who enjoyed the romantic aspect of the mystery, but like most fangirls, she was also a practical one, darnit.

Today, though, the day before the commencement of the Grand Prix finals, she had reason to believe would be different. They’d begun the day with a remarkably tasty (and free!) continental breakfast together with JJ’s Thai competition (Isabella had been searching for a good ship for Phichit Chulanont for years, but the agreeable man was such classic friendzone material it made things difficult. She'd hoped that with Katsuki Yuuri no longer in Detroit for Phichit to wingman things might change, but apparently not. Oh well, she'd still keep an eye out). As she met JJ in the hotel hallway in front of their adjoining rooms later after freshening up, he turned his back towards her for an instant to check the lock on the doors. As he did so, she observed a telltale bulge in his back pocket, exactly the size of certain boxes that contained certain pieces of jewelry from that store in the status update. A small flame of hope flared in her chest.

“You ready to party in Barcelona, JJ style!?” JJ flashed his signature pose and daredevil smirk.

“Always,” Isabella answered warmly, clasping his arm in hers.

They set out on their sightseeing expedition. They eschewed La Sagrada Familia for this trip and instead toured several other churches, both those still in that state and those converted, in whole or in part, into university campuses or museums (It was a common current trend in Europe, Isabella had noted with wistful regret). There were several places in front of beautiful carved frontispieces, breathtaking oil paintings, and tucked-away niches that they lingered in that she marked as likely spots.

“Beautiful,” she breathed, gazing enraptured at long slender necks and luminous countenances and colours in a painting of the Assumption by El Greco.

“Not as beautiful as you,” JJ replied artlessly.

In the cool dusky glow (naturally chosen to preserve the artifacts, but very convenient for mood lighting for other purposes), Isabella cast sharp glances towards JJ’s back pocket, but it remained untouched.

They retired from the churches to an unfashionably late lunch. JJ had found a highly recommended restaurant attached to an inn, overlooking picturesque gardens (even in winter!) and imbued with a quaint pastoral ambiance. Isabella loved it.

When the waitress served the couple, she broke out into a rapid-fire spiel in Spanish.

“Uh, Ingles, por favor,” JJ interrupted awkwardly.

The waitress switched effortlessly. “Oh, sorry, I just thought, you looked like you might be from here,” she gestured at him. It was a surprisingly common misconception, Isabella had discovered throughout the morning, stemming she guessed from JJ’s relatively swarthy complexion. It had been particularly hilarious when a tour group asked him in broken Spanish for an English translation of an exhibit label (They turned out to be Canadian too).

“I just wanted to ask if you were interested in our couple’s special,” the waitress continued solicitously. “We have a limited-time Don Quixote theme” - Isabella didn’t doubt it; you couldn’t walk ten meters in Spain without bumping into some reminder of Cervantes’ literary masterpiece - “and wondered if you wanted to treat your Lady Dulcinea to celebrate a special occasion.”

Isabella held her breath. Did JJ take her here for this? How sweet of her own windmill-tilting knight errant!

JJ turned his blinding smile on the waitress. “What a chivalrous idea!” Isabella bounced in her seat. “But, sorry, no.” She stopped abruptly. “We don’t have all that much time today, so hopefully another time.”

The waitress gathered their menus. “I understand. I’ll be back shortly with your order.”

If Isabella stabbed her paella a little more viciously than normal, JJ didn’t seem to notice.

Their last tourist stop that afternoon was at a renovated museum famous for its preserved architecture. JJ knew that Isabella fostered a fervent appreciation for such places, and trailed after her patiently as she explored all the exhibits with the audio guide that cost an extra five euros. They’d already passed several ideally situated porticos and water features (Isabella’s expectations were dying a slow, sputtering death in her chest) when JJ stopped in front of a display case of court accessories.

“This fan - somehow, it reminds me of you,” he said, turning towards her. An opening statement?

She peered around his shoulder at the indicated folding article. In front of a fan display case? Really?

She bent down to examine the fan anyway. “‘The small compartment in the center was used to conceal poison,’” she read the epitaph below aloud.

“Oh, I didn’t see that. Good eye,” JJ congratulated her. “So, had enough?”

She had. Oh, she had. “No.” She declared aloud, dragging him further into the winding halls. “I want to see the _whole_ thing.”

An hour and a half later, after the museum closed, JJ finally asked her, “So, is there anything else you want to do before we head to dinner?”

“No, not really.” Besides get proposed to, of course.

“Okay, let’s start looking for a place to eat then. Too bad this is a competition trip and I can’t stay up late; I’ve heard the discotheques in Spain are lit.”

Isabella craned her head as they passed a colourful crowd in the distance. “Is that an anime convention?” She thought she could see a few of her favourite ships represented.

“Yeah, looks like it. I’m sorry we didn’t know about it beforehand. I know how you like them, but it’s a bit late to register tonight.” JJ bumped against her as a passersby brushed against him. Isabella glanced behind her, and spied the stranger slipping something into his heavy coat.

“Stop! Thief!” Isabella shouted immediately.

“What?!” JJ spun around in shock.

The pickpocket crouched to flee, but was interrupted by a magnificent, jumbotron instant replay-worthy flying tackle courtesy of a compact woman scorned one too many times that day.

Isabella picked up the dropped velvety box as the thief made like a tree and cut their losses at the root. “You shouldn’t keep things you don’t want to lose in your pocket, especially the back one, when traveling in a foreign country. If you absolutely have to, at least wrap a rubber band around it. It makes it harder to pull out,” she informed her boyfriend sternly.

“Wait, don’t open that!” JJ ran up, reaching for the precious merchandise.

Isabella raised it neatly out of his path. “I already know what it is, JJ. When exactly were you planning on bringing it out? You’ve blown by so many chances already.”

JJ had the grace to look embarrassed. “...After I win the final.”

Isabella frowned at him. “If that’s the case, why didn’t you leave it in the hotel safe until then?”

“... Oh, right.”

“Okay, you're apparently even more stupidly nervous than I am today.” Isabella sighed at him. “If you’re already this keyed up, why are you waiting to ask me until after the finals? Am I second to skating to you?”

“No!” The Canadian champion protested with vigour. “I just want the moment to be perfect. You deserve the best; and - not that I’m getting anything less than gold two days from now - I don’t want you to accept me out of sympathy.”

Isabelle locked her sights on him firmly. “JJ. Though I’m your number-one fan, I don’t love you for your skating. And there’s never going to be a ‘perfect moment’. Those don’t exist.” Especially with you, but _that’s_ what I love about you, she thought, but kindly left unsaid.

JJ kicked the ground dejectedly. “I guess you’re right.”

“Now that that’s settled.” Right then and there in the midst of the crowded street, Isabella got down on one knee and popped open the box. “Jean-Jacques Leroy, will you marry me?”

“What?” JJ’s voice broke into an unmanly squeak.

“Is that a no?” Isabella asked evenly, allowing a small hint to bleed through of promised ire should that be the case.

“No! I mean yes! I mean no, that’s not a no, and yes, I’ll marry you!”

“Oh good.” Isabella swiftly plucked the gorgeous diamond-studded ring from the box, grabbed JJ’s hand, and dropped the bling into his nerveless palm. “Then put this on me.”

JJ did. Like the two of them, it was a perfect fit.

“I don’t think we should tell everyone yet,” JJ told her, as they walked in the sunset hand in hand. “I don’t want to cause an uproar before the finals. We’ll announce it after my win.”

“Okay, whatever you want, darling,” Isabella agreed placidly. She could allow this small concession after winning the war. She’d gotten what she wanted. “You’re already a winner to me. I’m a bigger one now though.” She squeezed his hand in hers.

“Hardly.” JJ grinned a shark-eating grin and squeezed back.

And when he nearly slipped and mangled her introduction from “fiance” into “fine girlfriend” at dinner just a quarter hour later, Isabella didn’t bat an eyelash.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s a proposal fic, written by someone who’s never seen a real one.  
> I don’t own Beyonce, her referenced song, or Naruto.  
> That tour group from your home country asking for a translation happened to me. You might see more of El Greco’s paintings in Toledo than Barcelona, I don’t know. Spain really does have a lot of decommissioned churches and a big thing for Cervantes. The poison fan is (or was, it’s been awhile since I’ve been) a real exhibit in Spain, but in Sevilla not Barcelona I think. Naturally, they do have anime conventions outside in Spain (the one I saw was in the summer though) that you can see as you stroll through the streets. Isabella’s advice on how to avoid pickpocketing, including the rubber band bit, is pretty accurate. It’s recommended to keep what you can under your clothes while sightseeing.


	7. #LoveTap

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> In which we find out why exactly Hiroko calls Minako "Sempai".

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Recommended to read after chapter #YOLO in Viktors Don’t Love Yuuris if you plan to read that story, but you certainly don't need to! Takes place wayyy before Yuuri was ice skating (and maybe Viktor, I dunno, he’s pretty old - *sobs*)

“Barkeep, another.”

The solid man polished a glass thoughtfully. “Weren’t you with that gokon that was just here?” His sharp eyes had noticed there was one more woman than man in the group. So this was the odd man - woman - out.

The brunette didn’t even raise her face from the other side of his counter. “Yes.”

“Didn’t they just leave for karaoke?”

This time, she did raise her head to check from one side of the moderately bustling bar to the other. “Apparently so.”

The man pursed his lips, the hidden life counselor side to all bartenders oozing through. “Didn’t feel like going?”

The woman lowered her head to her crossed forearms on the bar, long hair splayed forlornly in a corona about her slim form. “I hadn’t decided yet.”

The barkeep glanced at her sympathetically, still wiping away at the vessel in his hands. “Didn’t even notice they left you behind, huh?”

He was answered by a muffled groan. “Just take my dang money and give me one of those.” She slid the requisite amount of yen bills towards him, face once again buried out of sight.

Wordlessly, he complied, then picked up a broom besides the counter and commenced sweeping some empty floor space.

Okukawa Minako sipped at her mixed drink, pouting. Just typical. She’d just moved back to Hasetsu - her hometown, though her family had since moved away. She never thought she’d return herself, but since retiring from the troupe and deciding to set up her own studio, she needed a cheap place, and needs must. Almost immediately after arriving, she’d somehow been hooked into this group blind date (when she really should have been doing any number of things still left undone to settle in instead), one of the men had canceled due to a cold, and here she was now, the one who didn’t click. She should have expected nothing to change. All she could do now was drown her sorrows (Not to the point of drunkenness of course - Minako wasn’t stupid - but she felt she deserved this one last glass).  

She was interrupted from her pity party by a hefty form blundering its way onto the barstool beside her. 

“Hey, don’t I know you from somewhere?” The man blinked at her blearily.

“Hell if I know,” Minako replied shortly, shifting away slightly, hoping he’d take the hint.

The man didn’t. “I remember! Weren’t you in that Takarazuka play? The French one?” He snapped his fingers. “I’d heard one of the actresses was retiring to this prefecture; I had no idea it was to Hasetsu!”

“Yup, small world.” Minako turned towards the other direction, signaling the conversation was over.

Again, the man didn’t seem to respond appropriately to social cues. “Me and my girlfriend went to that show! You were one of the leads, right? My girlfriend was nuts about the love interest, but  _ I _ found  _ your _ performance… inspiring.” 

Minako sincerely doubted it (She’d taken the role of the love interest Andres, not the heroine Oscar), and didn’t welcome the heat that accompanied his insinuating compliment. Time to change the topic abruptly. “Where is she now?” She wasn't much of a relationship expert, but she felt compelled to inform his girlfriend that she was bound to do better with someone else. Pretty much anybody else. 

The drunk guy scowled. "That two-timing witch... We aren't together anymore." He went silent for a second, then grabbed her by the forearm, jostling her on her bar stool. "Hey, wanna go with me to karaoke?"

"Hey!" Minako called sharply, losing her balance and elbowing him in the stomach. 

The man's face assumed a pale green twinge. "Hold that thought," he burped out, clapping a hand to his mouth. "I'll be right back." He fled to the washrooms. 

"Take your time," Minako said shortly to his fleeing back with an eyeroll. "I missed out on a Sailor Moon marathon for this?" she muttered under her breath. She wasn't concerned about her hassler - long before he returned, she'd have finished her drink and left for the Shinkansen station. If she was lucky, by the time she got home there might be an episode or two still airing. She raised her half-empty glass for another swig, but was interrupted by a cheerful voice. 

"Okukawa-sempai! It's been awhile! I didn't realize you'd returned to Hasetsu!" A bespectacled woman, shorter than Minako, suddenly appeared, smiling warmly at her. “You're drinking here alone?”

Minako blinked at the second stranger to accost her unprovoked. "Well -"

"We were just having an informal class reunion with everyone still in the city - it’s for the year after yours, but even so, we’d have loved to have invited you, if only we'd known you were back!" The woman continued beaming at her, hands clasped in front around a clear glass of amber liquid.

“Um, I’m sorry, you are…?” Minako prompted, setting her drink on the counter. 

“Hiroko! Katsuki Hiroko” said Hiroko, not deterred in the slightest. “Or, well, that’s my married name now; you don’t remember little Hiroko-chan? From the home ec club in high school?” 

Minako frowned slightly. She had participated in the after-school performing arts club all three years (Students were discouraged from trying out only one club during their three - year high school career. Minako did anyway). Perhaps Hiroko had her confused with her older sister? Minako didn’t think they looked  _ that _ alike. Maybe she was near-sighted. Minako glanced at the round lenses contained by the plain wire rims balanced on her flat nose. Not  _ that _ thick of glass. Then, maybe…

“Oh, right, of course! It’s been awhile, sorry.” Pleasantries out of the way, Minako steered the conversation towards her suspicion. “So, what’s that you’ve got there?” She nodded affably towards the condensate-covered beverage in the other woman’s grip. 

“This? Oh, just barley tea! I don’t drink really!” Hiroko chuckled benignly. 

Further down the bar, the barkeep, finished with his cleaning, uncorked a particularly good brew and began pouring for a patron. Minako sniffed the scent wafting in their direction appreciatively. Hiroko followed her example, then swayed just perceptibly. 

Oh my word. Was this girl tipsy on  _ fumes _ ?

“Anyway,  _ hic! _ sempai, what brings you back to Hasetsu?” Hiroko asked her eagerly, genuine good-natured longing to hear about her sempai’s adventures written across her honest face.

“I’m opening a dance studio,” Minako told her just as honestly, kindly ignoring the glossed-over hiccup. “ I don't suppose you're interested in ballet lessons?” She was still looking around for student fees - she meant students.

“Oh, no, not me!” Hiroko’s brown bob whipped about with the emphatic force of her negative head-shake. “I have two left feet. You remember, sempai, that party after the culture festival? But my children now - I have two, Mari and Yuuri. It'll be especially good for Yuuri - Yuuri's gotten a bit chubby ever since discovering ice cream. Hang on, I think I have a picture.” She rummaged in her purse until grasping a thick wallet. Unfolding it, Hiroko unfurled a long train of photos. She grabbed one and shoved it under Minako’s unwilling nose. “See?”

Minako saw.

Hiroko crooned softly. “Darling, aren't they?”

"Yes, very." Minako looked cross-eyed at a candid shot of a toddler plopped on the floor, an open tub of half-melted vanilla ice cream in front of him, half-turned towards the camera behind him. There was a very familiar (to Minako) transparently guilty look in his big brown eyes, frozen in time with a sticky hand shoved in his mouth. A girl a few years older, with the same dark wavy hair but down to her shoulders, stood in the background, one arm resting on her hip with the other pressed to her forehead. Despite the silence of the laminated paper, any observer could clearly hear the involuntary groan issuing from the girl’s downturned lips.

Observing the photo, Minako vaguely wondered about the wisdom of shoehorning one's son into ballet lessons before the age of reason. Minako hoped no-one would beat him up and steal his lunch money. She resolved to be extra nice to him, feeling a pang of guilt for her hand in his sissification, but not enough to air her misgivings and risk losing out on the potential lesson fees (She was far past the point of even registering the very hypocritical and sexist view she was projecting, especially considering her own nontraditional gender roles in her own career. Minako might have been less politically correct than a kindergartener, doubly so when abandoned at bars).

There was one other thing that was still bothering her about the photo however. If Hiroko was old enough to have borne that girl in the background - Minako cleared her throat nonchalantly. "Erm, what year class reunion was going on again?"

Hiroko stifled a giggle, eyes creased in amusement. "Can't remember your own high school graduating class, sempai? I understand. It feels like a lifetime ago!"

"Yes, a completely different era," said Minako, raising her glass for another mouthful. 

"Don't worry, I've got you. It's-" The garrulous woman told her. 

Minako inhaled, then snorted out half of what she had just imbibed. She gasped for breath, rubbing the bridge of her nose to alleviate the itching-burning building up within it. She thought she had been joking about the different era. Forget her sister - that was her  _ aunt's _ graduating class (a very young aunt, admittedly, but still,  _ ten years _ ' difference?!) She groaned, clasping her head in misery. If that was the age she appeared...

Hiroko, motherly to the core, patted her on the back soothingly. "I know, I know. Time flies, doesn't it?"

Enough was enough. “Yes it does, but -”

“Whew, that took awhile! Let’s split, girlie!” The drunk man from earlier plodded from the washrooms and swept between the two women, grabbing Minako’s hand and pulling her towards the door. 

“Uh, I never agreed to go with you,” Minako protested, planting a foot down and jerking her hand from his sweaty grip in one firm motion.

“Come on, we just reunited. Let’s have some fun. Can’t deny fate, right?” The man squeezed her to his side with a surprisingly strong arm, steering them both to the exit. 

“Hang on a second…” Minako tried to slow his progress by digging in her heels, but just her luck, they only snapped off at the sole. And she was wedged too far into the side of the man’s ample stomach to get a good angle for an elbow strike. She was about to call for help, when she was beaten to the punch.

“She just said she doesn’t want to go with you,” Hiroko inserted herself smoothly in their path, voice calm, arms raised placatingly.

The man brushed her aside brusquely. “Back off, hag.” He continued moving.

Hiroko just stepped back in his way, head angled downwards. “I tried to ask nicely…” She raised her head, all traces of good humour flowing out of her chocolate eyes, leaving them twin shards of implacable amber. She sighed, exhaling cold disappointment. “But you just wouldn’t listen.”

The man leered at her, lip curled challengingly.

Quick as lightning, Hiroko snatched the nearby broom leaning against the counter, grasping it low, broomhead down. She raised it over her head in a precise axis, both hands firmly on the shaft. She swung it down in front of her with a deep guttural cry. “ _ Men! _ ” The blow landed on the man’s shoulder (opposite to Minako), not on the called head strike, but it was nonetheless effective (After home ec, Hiroko had joined the kendo club). Minako stepped away as the man slouched against the bar, temporarily overcome. The unexpected shout and resultant crash broke through the buzz in the bar; some heads swiveled in their direction. Hiroko hovered over the downed man like an avenging angel visiting violence upon his misdeeds.

“Why, you-! How dare you do that to my friend!” Apparently, there was a second piece of bad news at the bar today. Another man loped into the fray, fists swinging, straight for Hiroko. Before Minako could do more than gape, Hiroko turned her back to him, and as soon as his chest made contact, grasped one of his flailing arms, drew it down across her own shoulder and heaved. The man sailed up and over her hunkered-down form and landed face-up on the cold hard floor, winded. Hiroko nudged him with a foot, face unrecognizable with her smile lost. “You left me no choice,” she addressed him emotionlessly. Conversations and bar-tending forgotten, the patrons and bartender remained motionless in their positions, breathtaken with the sudden turn of events.

At that moment, some excuse for bravery returned to Minako’s original hassler, as he jumped up from where he was crumpled, bypassed Minako (What was she, devastatingly attractive chopped liver?) and rushed Hiroko. She merely huffed in annoyance - “Haven’t you learned your lesson yet?” - sidestepped his path neatly and whooshed behind him, grabbing his midsection and lifting upwards with a grunt of effort. She bent back into a near bridge, bopping the man gently on the floor in a textbook German suplex (Before she had joined the home ec club, Hiroko had taken judo). 

The fight left him immediately. Hiroko released him, and followed his path with a gimlet gaze as both the and his friend shuffled out the door, fleeing in shame. The entire bar just watched openmouthed, not lifting a finger. “Good riddance to bad garbage,” Hiroko ground out, jaw tight. Unexpectedly,  she whirled on Minako. "And you - !"

Oh yabai. She'd figured it out. Minako, no longer recognizing the welcoming, good-natured woman she’d just met in the cold competent brawler before her now, cringed in anticipation of the forthcoming slap for impersonating her sempai. 

Instead, she felt soft warm arms enveloping her. 

"You need to protect yourself better, sempai. I have Toshiya to look after me -" Hiroko’s husband, Minako assumed. Well, if she said so; she seemed to Minako to be doing just fine on her lonesome - "What would you have done if I wasn't there? Let them walk all over you?" 

The tiny woman squeezed Minako tighter, as if she couldn't quite make up her mind whether to mother her or strangle her (And in the end, there might not be all that much difference between the two on such occasions). "Oh, honestly, what am I going to do with you?"

Minako must have been more affected by the alcohol in her system than she thought - she could feel the beginnings of tears pricking at the corner of her eyes. She sniffed and rubbed her nose fiercely. It was time to come clean. She opened her mouth, but was beaten to the punch. 

"If you weren't my sempai, I'd have half a mind to turn you over my knee here and now and wallop you a good one for your carelessness!" Hiroko declared, not joking.

Minako gulped. Nix that - after all, what Hiroko didn't know couldn't hurt Minako. 

And in the meantime, if she was being squeezed harder than was strictly necessary, she couldn't bring herself to mind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And that’s my headcanon on why Hiroko calls Minako “sempai.”  
> Good kids don’t drink alcohol, and good adults don’t get drunk. Be safe at bars.   
> This fanfiction does not promote violence. It probably does not describe the proper technique for the kendo strike or for a German suplex. The throwing move is a self-defence technique, but you should learn it from a professional rather than follow the description here, so as not to injure yourself or others. In general, self defence is just a great skill to learn! Let me just say, the realization that you can successfully throw someone twice your size on your own power is very rewarding (Though, the throwee was cooperating in class; an actual confrontation would likely be rather harder D:).   
> Also, on another note, when you first heard someone calling “Men!” for a kendo headstrike, did you think they were just complaining about men in English? I did. I mean, I was like, yeah, I can sympathize, girl, but seriously, I don’t think they’re gonna change their behavior if you yell about it while bopping them on the head with a bamboo stick. But obviously they knew that already.  
> The Takarazuka play referenced here is Rose of Versaille, which I don’t own. Neither do I own Sailor Moon.


End file.
